VANDALS have caused more than £400 of damage to a caf in Blackburn town centre by smashing six windows over a ten-day period.

Staff at the Piano Caf, in Northgate, arrived for work today to find the street strewn with bottles from three overturned bins, a smashed window and boot-marks showing where someone had tried to kick the door in.

Caf owner Clare Boyce said today she will have to board up the lower windows permanently as she can no longer afford to keep replacing them.

Mrs Boyce said: "It feels like I'm getting used to it now, arriving in a morning to see another window has been kicked in.

"I don't know why it's happening though. I can't think of anyone at all that has a grudge against us and I have no idea if it's the same person or different people each time.

"All the other shops round here have shutters, but they cost thousands of pounds.

"I can't help wondering now whether it might have been worth it, because we are just paying out every time, straight out of the profits.

"The CCTV never seems to catch them and I don't know what else we can do but board up the windows."

Manager Ann Newton, who opened the caf and called the police after the latest incident, said: "It's so annoying that people are just smashing things for the sake of it.

"It's as though they have a mission to destroy things and all the mess made a nice area look terrible. Until last week we hadn't had any trouble for more than a year."

A spokesman for Lancashire Police said: "Every one of the cases of damage is being investigated."